Lately I've been pondering, as is my custom, about the dreadful plight our world is in. Perhaps my last post wasn't sufficient to convey the true fragility of the dream that is America (it used to be the dream that was Rome, but then Caesar screwed it all up), but today I forgo further beration in favor of a more benign topic than I am wont to typically approach. Sadly it seems that our leaders are in a similar state of mind as myself, because they appear guilty of the same neglect. But what is being neglected, you ask? It's quite simple really: the future.
In a display of truly moronic shortsightedness that has sadly become all too typical of government, Obama and friends are only adding to the damage by spending more money and making big plans to continue that spending – health-care reforms, I'm looking at you. Of course, none of this will do anything to ease the suffering of the economy, but that's another rant for another day.
Oftentimes when I'm asked to do something, I try to ask two questions: who's going to pay for it? and who's going to clean it up if it all goes South? So let's apply these questions to our current economic situation – the answer on both accounts: our children. So imagine little Timmy says he wants to be an astronaut when he grows up. Instead of feeding him the you-are-special-and-can-do-anything-you-want-to crap that we seem to be so in love with lately, why don't we tell him the truth? “Well, sorry Timmy, but I'm afraid that by the time you're old enough to be an astronaut we're going to be so in debt that the closest thing we'll have to a space program is a swing set. Besides, you'll be too busy cleaning up all of our messes and trying to restore the integrity of the dollar and the American global economic presence to worry about space.”
There are some that seem to have realized the full portent of our actions, but they are the responsible minority. Everyone else is so caught up in solving their own problems and getting back to their comfortable lifestyles that they couldn't care less what happens 30 years from now. The government is no better; instead of realizing their agenda will have to wait and putting priorities where they should be, they're attempting to ignore the real problem and are trying to get the public to do the same. As soon as someone brings up the issue of who's going to pay for it? with health-care reform, we suddenly start hearing about how we're all going to die from swine flu (backed by numbers no less), how bad Bush & co. were for torturing mass-murderers, and then Ted Kennedy dies (now that's what I call party loyalty).
Begrudged bipartisan politics have screwed our country up enough at present, so why don't we utilize this whole democracy thing to our advantage and do something about it? There's still hope that we can turn things around not just for us, but for future generations. The sad reality of the situation is that the emerging adults of today are going to be in about the same position as little Timmy, but it's still in our power to keep that from happening to those that will come after – so do it.
- Brutus

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One of the disadvantages of our materialistic society is that we have developed a feeling of entitlement. For example, when our business operations don't go so well we expect the government to bail us out. In many instances this spills over into our personal lives--the government welfare program being a prime example. Please don't misunderstand, I'm not saying we don't need welfare; however, this "safety net" program is taken to an extreme when many people who can work choose not to because they get money for nothing. Now that America faces the threat of universal health I feel the need to do all that I can to prevent this "something for nothing" mentality from taking over our healthcare system. The following analogy beautifully depicts my stance on socialized medicine:

"An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before but had once failed an entire class.
That class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.
The professor then said, “OK, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism. All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A.
After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B.
The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.
As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.
The second test average was a D! No one was happy.
When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.
The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.
All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.
Could not be any simpler than that."

Regardless of the fact that a system like this produces inefficiency and irresponsibility to say the least, it will incur over 1.5 trillion dollars more debt in the next 10 years(foxnews.com). I SAY NO!


Josh Oaks

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The year America entered Red Spending: 1790
The National Debt equivalent to every American: over $38,000
National Debt rate of increase: $3.92 billion per day
Money paid in debt interest last year: $452 billion
Estimated National Debt by 2014: $18 trillion

-Matt










Sources:
Fox News http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/07/03/growing-national-debt-economic-crisis/
Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt

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Hello there folks, you may call me Brutus, and I'll be your guide today on a trip through the misty, guilt-ridden confines of history. Our focus will be the consummation of a journey that spans generations, a deep-seated yearning that possesses young and old, rich and poor; indeed, this cherished goal has become so engrained within the American collective-subconscious that its pursuit could be construed as patriotic. I speak of the search for someone or something to blame.

But why should we be criticizing and suggesting the abdication of something that's an American tradition? After all, America was built on the blame game. The revolutionaries blamed the British government for the woes and miseries of their lives – which were of course founded in truth – but I know plenty of people who are in full possession of their “inalienable rights” and are still miserable. The Confederate States of America blamed the Union's anti-slavery stance as their original reason for secession, even though basic economics and Jeffersonian ideals of states' rights were the true impetus behind the split (maybe they just didn't sound as catchy). In our own century, the military blamed the government and the government blamed the military for the embarrassing debacle that was the Vietnam War, and recently everyone's favorite scapegoat for everything from the failing economy to swine flu has been the deceptively moderate figurehead of conservatism, George W. Bush.

When it comes to our current economic plight however, we have no one to blame but ourselves. As a nation we are at fault because we have fostered and funded a culture that can be described as nothing short of sybaritic decadence (and not in the incorrect way 'decadent' is used in food and clothing advertisements). We as individuals are equally guilty because we have allowed ourselves to become acculturated by the plague of excessive living, the result of our contagion being recession and debt. In typical American fashion, people are quick to point the finger at China for taking away so many of our jobs, but those jobs wouldn't have reason to exist had we not provided sufficient demand for the trivial crap they manufacture on our behalf. No matter who you try to blame, it ultimately comes down to the utterly-reprehensible truth: it's all our fault. When you try to support a needlessly expensive lifestyle by buying things with money that technically doesn't exist, you're going to run into problems – but that's another topic for another day. Just let it be said that even and especially our government refuses to give up the spend-happy culture which has been our custom, as they seem to believe spending more money to be the only viable solution for alleviating our troubles. As such, I think we can expect the economy to be part of the “Axis of Evil” for many years to come.

Perhaps the saddest part of all is that I if we don’t take action now our current course is set for disaster– people are too attached to their pride and possessions. People are becoming apathetic and lazy and are forsaking the very traits which for centuries have been unequivically American. Diligence and drive are dying attributes, and as a result people are relying on the government to bail them out. Since our liberal friends are in charge they're more than happy to oblige the vox populi - and so we march contentedly towards socialism, where everyone is poor together and industry is crippled to the point of figurative senility. Much like the famed Roman historian Livy, I feel that we have moved to a far different path from that of our forefathers “as the old teaching was allowed to lapse,” and that we are seeing the “final collapse of the whole edifice, and the dark dawning of our modern day when we can neither endure our vices nor face the remedies needed to cure them.” What's scary is that all of that was written in the first century A.D., and yet it ably applies itself to our current situation. The more the Roman citizenry relied on the government to take care of their problems for them the more corrupt its leaders became, until the entire structure collapsed under the weight of its own greed and cowardice. Bottom line: Rome died a miserable and inglorious death that had millennia-long repercussions, America can too.

So my fellow Americans, I implore you to use this as an opportunity to examine yourselves both fiscally and spiritually. Let's not make the same mistake the Romans did – realize that this is one set of traditions that are far from honorable and need to be mercilessly removed from our lives. Let us once more give esteem to thrift and plain living and re-learn the contentment that comes with prudence and moderation. The nation itself is in need of some deep cleaning, but the nation is merely a reflection of the individual, so it starts with you. Accept responsibility for the disaster we've caused and accept the new responsibility of righting this sickening wrong. Then, with our newfound zeal for self correction let us remember the words of our Founding Fathers, namely that “Governments…instituted among Men [derive] their just powers from the consent of the governed,” and that “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter [it].” If we're lucky we may just have what it takes to turn this around and get our leaders to follow suit. Otherwise we'll all go down in a rain of worthless high-fructose-corn-syrup-soaked dollar bills with North Korean nukes for a sunset. All while Roseanne Barr sings the National Anthem to the accompaniment of wailing stock-brokers...

Brutus

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